Geohot appeals for donations to fight Sony

By IBT Staff Reporter On 02/20/11 AT 10:49 PM

Sony Computer Entertainment's new Play Station 3 game console is displayed during a news conference in Tokyo. Sony may succeed in getting its civil case against the hacker geohot, aka George Hotz, moved to California. Photo: Reuters

Geohot has created a blog where he is asking for donations to fight his legal case against Sony.

Geohot, whose real name is George Hotz, says he does not want to lose this case due to lack of funds and his inability to hire sufficient legal power. Presently, he claims in his blog, he has hired two lawyers against Sony’s five.

His blog gives his reasons for jail breaking and customizing the PS3 console, explains his reasons for asking for donations and how people can make contributions.

“My PS3 goal has been to provide users a legitimate path to home-brew, which by the standards of all previous cases (or, in reverse), is 100% legal, he writes. Sony does not even try to allege piracy or copyright infringement in this case, they allege I did things like play 'super mario world, an unauthorized game' on MY PS3. And access MY PS3 in an unauthorized way. Who are they to authorize what I do with my taxed and paid for property? fail0verflow's goal was even nobler than mine. They wanted to give you back a feature Sony illegally stole, Linux on your PS3. It's shameful on Sony's part that they are being sued at all. If you have a problem with pirates, sue them, don't sue people who point out your shortcomings…..Consumers have rights, and we aren't afraid to stand up for them.”

In an attempt to prevent the person from committing suicide, Avleen K. Mokha in her Facebook post wrote, "Don't go ahead with this tonight. There's more in life to look forward to beyond tonight. Please be there to see it."